European Union News

Although minimum drinking age in most EU Member states is set at 18 years old, the most recent European surveys show that half of school children aged 15 to16 years have drunk alcohol in the past month. In order to tackle this situation and take action to protect young people, experts, industry and other stakeholder have met at the the 9th plenary meeting of the European Alcohol and Health Forum held in in Brussels on 19 October.

The Committee of the Regions opens the application time for its 5th Summit of Europe's Regions and Cities. Regional and local authorities, associations and other organisations are invited to apply for participation in this exhibition by sending projects before 7 November. The Summit of Europe's Regions and Cities will take place on 22 and 23 March 2012 in Copenhagen (Denmark).

Five Member States - Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg - exceeded their dairy quotas in 2010/2011, resulting in a super levy of about €55.57 million. Total EU production remained well below the total quota volume, despite the overrun of the quotas in these Member States. Overall EU production was 6% below the total EU quotas.

Participants from over 40 countries around the world will meet at one of the biggest open data event, the Open Government Data Camp 2011, that will take place on 20-21st October in Warsaw, Poland. Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and Digital Agenda Commissioner will be one of the speakers at the opening ceremony.

The European Commission adopted a plan which will fund €50 billion worth of investment to improve Europe's transport, energy and digital networks. This aims at creating jobs and boosting Europe's competitiveness at a time when Europe needs this most. In addition the Commission adopted the terms for the Europe 2020 Project Bond Initiative which will be one of a number of risk-sharing instruments upon which the facility may draw in order to attract private finance in projects.

The European Parliament's fourth annual prize for excellence in journalism has been granted to French, Italian, Finnish and German journalists. The winners, in four categories, written press, internet, TV and radio, each received €5,000.

Commission confirmed that it undertook unannounced inspections at the premises of companies active in the sector of financial derivative products linked to the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) in certain Member States. In addition, the Economic and Affairs Committee at the EP also announced a deal with the Polish presidency on the regulation beefing up standards and requirements for the practices of short selling and trading in credit default swaps (CDS), a financial product insuring against default.

The European Commission intends to achieve a common definition for nanomaterials in order to better protect citizens, clearly defining which materials need special treatment in specific legislation. The definition says that nanomaterials are materials whose main constituents have a dimension of between 1 and 100 billionth of a metre and is based, according to the European Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, on scientific input and a broad consultation.

The Internal Market Committee voted on its input to forthcoming proposal to revise EU rules on cross-border mobility for professionals. MEPs agreed that without compromising the reliability or safety of their services to citizens, the skills of doctors, engineers, dentists and other professionals applying to work in another EU Member State must be recognised faster.

According to the R&D Scoreboard published by the Commission, although the top EU companies recovered strongly in 2010, data for the world's top 1400 companies shows that EU companies as a whole lagging behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies on R&D growth.

MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee approved the agreement on the transfer of EU air passenger's personal data to the Australian Customs Service. The data will be used to prevent terrorist offences and serious transnational crime. Under the new agreement, the Australian Customs Service would retain the passenger's data for a maximum period of 5 and a half years.

The European Commission adopted a package of measures aimed at increasing interaction with parties in antitrust proceedings and strengthening the mechanisms for safeguarding parties' procedural rights. Additionally, among the measures adopted, the Commission expands and strengthens the Hearing Officer role.